


It Was Not Your Fault, But Mine

by Sildominarin



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, M/M, Presumed Dead, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 05:29:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2298227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sildominarin/pseuds/Sildominarin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha stands before the ruined, burnt out shell of a house that should have been safe, and closes her ledger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Was Not Your Fault, But Mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WriteThroughTheNight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriteThroughTheNight/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Shooting Stuff Is Better With Company](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1996956) by [WriteThroughTheNight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriteThroughTheNight/pseuds/WriteThroughTheNight). 



The air is close there. Closer then the impossibly tall trees above, the impossibly green undergrowth pressing into them below. Her compatriots-not friends, not here, not yet- have followed her this far, and for that she is grateful. She knows Sam is uncomfortable with the tight quarters, an arborial cage that render his wings useless. And Cap... _Steve_ wants to keep looking for The Winter Soldier. Both want to hunt HYDRA.

And Natasha understands, shares their discomforts and desires. But this is more important.This will always be more important.

She hadn't  known Clint was undercover, hadn't known Hawkeye had been sent in as something besides eyes up high. His handlers, a parade of agents each handpicked by Fury, have either been keeping Barton to basic missions or had been stupidly ignorant of the Avenger' s whole range of valuable skills. Nothing in their conversations had hinted that he was back in his full capacity as a Level 7 agent, and Natasha hadn't had time-hadn't taken the time to check- before she had brought their world crashing down.

In more ways then one.

For all her skills as a spy- and Natasha is far from humble in her own self evaluation- she had never seen Coulson coming back. Too much time had gone by, too much had changed. And in Some ways, the depth of Clint's dry eyed grief had made it seem all too real. Phil Coulson had died in a vain attempt to stop Loki, and She had compartmentalized her grief away until it could not touch her and went on. But now he is back, is alive and in command, and her world is as close to reeling as she allows it to go.

And when she is unsteady, Natasha Romanov takes her problem to the man who never misses.

Only that man isn't answering her calls, isn't responding  to the signals and codes she has been sending, and every hour that creeps by without words brings that unsteadiness closer to her, closer to her hands and her eyes.

But it only reaches her heart when the coordinates lead her to a burnt out shell of a bunker,  the intense humidity trapping the smoke of an old fire around them like a macabre fog. Her eyes don't fill- she may never be that unsteady- but the tremor in her hands is clear even from a distance as she strokes pale fingertips around the crumbling wreck of the bow.

Steve follows her gaze, her hands, and Natasha can tell from the tight, guilty, devastated planes of his face that h  doesn't really need the confirmation. "Hawkeye?"

"Got a body here.Well, bones." Wilson doesn't know- can't be expected to know- the enormity of that sharpens guilt, and Natasha forces herself not to punish him for referring to Clint that way. As a thing. "Single gunshot wound, execution style. Fire's changed too much to tell, but looks like maybe Caucasian? I--"

Steve sends Sam a look that Natasha can practically feel, but it's too late. She won't look, can't loose the image of a sandy haired, smirking sniper for what is left of CClinton Francis Barton. Her mind scuttled away from th  knowledge that who ever had killed him was out of her reach, that the men who had put her hawk on his knees and murdered him would not pay, and turns aside. She can only hope they suffered, and that he did not fall alone. It is all she had left for him.

Steve catches her arm as she moves to step over the threshold, and his face asks the questions without him voicing them.

"We call Coulson. We tell him that one Avenger is down. We find your Winter Soldier. And we destroy HYDRA."

"How? Cut off one head, one more will follow, right?"

And Natasha does not think of the man who died alone because of her, of the only friend she  had left reduced to bones in a jungle as she speaks.

"Then we aim for the heart."

 


End file.
